Second Chances
by TheGethhaveacrushonme
Summary: Warden-Commander Lenore Cousland's life is strangely empty. The sudden appearance of someone she'd met years ago turns it upside down. Not exactly canon. Probably downright apocryphal by the time DA3 comes out. Rated M because, well, Isabela.
1. Chapter 1

She was lonely, desperately lonely. It was a state unbefitting the Warden-Commander. Unbecoming for a Cousland. Downright pathetic for the Arl of Amaranthine. So she swallowed it and continued going about her duties as usual.

It had been ten years. Ten years since the Blight, ten years since she became a hero, ten years since she decided not to become Queen of Ferelden, ten years since the ritual that had been the final nail in the coffin to her relationship with Alistair.

_Relationship._

It had been a desperate little fling. Perhaps not to him, but she had - _yielded_ - to his courtship only with the prospect of certain death on her mind. She wasn't proud of it. Perhaps she'd broken his heart. But she hadn't wanted him to die, and she hadn't wanted to die herself, either. The ritual had been for the best, or so she hoped. Wondering where Morrigan was and whether her child (heir to the throne, no less!) was an abomination threatening all of Thedas. Secretly, she often thought she should just have given her life instead.

She'd been with Nathaniel for a while, but that hadn't worked out. Of course it hadn't. Earl Howe had been standing between them almost as if she hadn't killed him at all. As much as he may have wanted to, he hadn't been able to forgive her, and he'd looked too much like the man who'd killed almost her entire family. They'd been broken from the start. Had hardly managed being friends after.

How ironic was it, she wondered, that the best sex she'd ever had in her life had been a one-time thing with a woman she'd met in a brothel? That sounded all wrong, she mused. She hadn't been a prostitute. From what Lenore had gathered, she had probably been a customer. Or liked the atmosphere. She had been odd, but beautiful, dangerously exciting, and so talented. Lenore couldn't really remember what had been going through her mind when she'd started shamelessly flirting with the pirate in front of Alistair, Wynne and Morrigan. She'd never been with a woman before. She'd hardly even been with a man before. It had probably shown, but if the pirate had minded, she'd held her tongue. Had been busy using her tongue for something else. The memory was still the one Lenore came back to when nothing else would do.

She often found herself wondering if Isabela was still alive. How long did a notorious pirate captain live? Probably not long enough.

. . .

News travelled fast to the Warden-Commander, and when the rebellion hit Kirkwall, she knew even faster than Denerim. Stories of Anders, her Anders, whom she had found funny albeit a little too immodest, blowing up a chantry; stories of the Champion's defeat of a possessed Knight Commander of the Templars, and of the bloody uprisings of mages everywhere in the Marches. Then again, Amaranthine was closer to the Free Marches. Significantly closer, she realised in the next weeks and months. Like a reversed Blight, people came across the sea to seek refuge in Ferelden. Highever and Amaranthine were hit hardest. The number of refugees was much smaller, of course, but Amaranthine hardly had the capacities to feed her own people. Thankfully, many of them tried and made it to Denerim. Let Alistair deal with it, she thought. He had the means.

...

She did not often allow herself the weakness of a night at the Crown and Lion, but it was the tenth anniversary of their defeat of the archdemon, and there was no one to celebrate with, so she did this for herself, got to let her hair down for once.

Literally as well as figuratively.

Lenore Cousland had always been a tomboy, but after years of fighting darkspawn and training new wardens, wearing a pretty dress for once and letting her long, silver hair flow down her back actually felt oddly freeing.

Maker, what had she come to?

Most of the people knew her, of course, and kept a respectful distance, though she imagined they were bewildered at the odd sight of her out of armour. Though she had two daggers safely hidden away, one in her boot, the other in an unobtrusive pocket of her dress that had been designed specifically for that purpose. Even her finery was pragmatic. She would not have had it any other way.

She sat in an armchair at a small table at the back of the tavern, in the shadows, drinking a deep red Tevinter vintage. She enjoyed watching the other customers without being easily watched herself. The most interesting thing tonight was a drunken, very... whimsically dressed, dark-skinned woman at the bar. To have been able to see her properly, Lenore would have had to leave her shadows, and she was reluctant to do so. She'd always loved shadows, had developed an entire fighting style revolving around exploiting shadows and darkness and her enemies' blind spots.

The woman at the bar seemed to be very intent on getting hammered as quickly as possible. Other customers stared at her with undisguised sneers on their faces, but also many a lewd stare. Lenore was pulled in by the sheer self-destructive abandon with which the woman was drinking. She couldn't possibly go on like this for long.

And then two men approached her, talked to her in low voices, faces spelling trouble. She tried to wave them off. Lenore couldn't hear what she said, but it must have been dismissive, the way they started glaring at her. One of them grabbed her wrist, pulled her off the bartstool, and the woman stood, shakily. Just as Lenore wanted to get up, she drew two daggers with a strangely familiar grace and moved, eerily swift and precise for someone that drunk, kicked one of them to the floor, while she trained a dagger at the other's throat.

There was a moment of almost complete silence in the room, like the second before the storm hits, and Lenore had seen enough to know that it was either now or never. Despite her fondness for shadows and hiding, she knew how to make her presence known. She hadn't become larger than life for nothing. She stepped from her corner and cleared her throat.

"Your Arl has decided to grace you all with her presence tonight and she does not particularly fancy witnessing a barfight." She could still perfectly manage the cold, haughty, slightly ironic tone she'd been taught to use with commoners when she'd been a girl. "It will certainly only lead to a whole lot of paperwork. So would you two gentlemen kindly get lost, and would you sheath your weapons, Isabela?"

She looked different, ten years had been a long time for her, too, obviously, but Lenore knew her fighting style just too well. Isabela had trained her in it, after all. And she'd had that same fierce grace in bed.

The men reluctantly obeyed and a few conversations were taken up again, while Lenore approached the other woman. She couldn't help letting her gaze rest briefly on the too exposed chest, the almost bare thighs, then she pulled it away from the bronze skin and looked into fathomless dark eyes instead.

For a moment, Isabela blinked at her, then she exclaimed:

"Oh, it's you, sweet thing. I heard you might be around town, but I didn't expect to meet you here. Then again, this godawful city doesn't even have a brothel." Her voice was slightly slurred and she almost slipped off the counter as she tried to lean against it. "Anders sends his best. Oh no, wait, he is too busy blowing up chantries." She sounded bitter. Lenore had no time to think about her words, she needed to deal with this first. The state the other woman was in made her cringe inwardly. Part of her wanted to help her not make a fool of herself, but another, much more selfish part of her did not want her memory of the woman spoiled.

"You're very drunk, Isabela. Maybe you should lay off the booze and rest? Do you have a room here? Or is your ship riding at anchor...?"

"Ship!" Isabela sneered. "There is no ship."

It had been the wrong thing to say, Lenore realised. Isabela had a belligerent look about her again. Like she wanted to get into a fight, just for the hell of it.

But Lenore hadn't dealt with Oghren for years without learning how to calm a drunkard looking for a fight. She reached out and gently put her hand to Isabela's naked shoulder.

"Why don't you tell me all about it? My table is over there. What are you having?"


	2. Chapter 2

Isabela had been frightfully lost for a while now. It was a terrible state for a woman who had always been nothing if not sure of herself. She had no ship. No home. No more friends. She'd lost the one thing she'd so valiantly tried to deny she wanted, needed, until it had been too late. Hawke had not forgiven her, at least not enough to let them rekindle what might have been there before she'd run off with the relic, returned, then vanished for years. She hadn't been good enough for Hawke, on so many levels _(nothing but a lying, thieving snake_). She'd always known, but still she had wanted her with a ferocity that had startled her. Too deep, way too deep. Hawke had completely undone her.

And then the city had been burning, Meredith was dead, and they'd had to disperse. She'd (_finally_) made it to Ostwick (_four years too late_), found a ship to sign up on, but it hadn't been the same as having her own, of course it hadn't been. She couldn't take orders from a dilettante for long, had been thrown off the ship in the next port, and had found herself stranded in muddy, rainy, blighted Ferelden.

Not even Denerim, which had the Pearl at least. Oh no. Amaranthine.

But then, she'd found, and that had been the final straw, she wasn't even in the mood for a tumble. So she'd sat down at the bar of the shabby inn she'd still had enough coin to rent a room in, and tried to drink herself into unconsciousness, blissful, fleeting oblivion.

At least that had been the plan.

She loved her outfit, even more so because everyone else seemed to consider it indecent, but it was a bit of a nuisance when she actually didn't want to be hit on for once. And Ferelden was so much draughtier than Kirkwall, but that was beside the point. The point was, she thought dimly, as she rolled her eyes at another lewd comment, that idiots kept thinking they had a chance with her, even when all she wanted was a long, steaming hot bath. Not that the fleabag inn provided any such thing.

"Hey there, what's a hot, exotic thing like yourself doing in a boring place like this? Wouldn't you rather entertain me and my friend here for the night? We've certainly got the coin..."

Well, wasn't that just a lovely sentiment?

She rolled her eyes.

"Obviously, what I'm doing here is being propositioned by sleazy prigs who cannot get a woman into their beds unless they hire her."

Suddenly there was a filthy hand on her arm and she was briefly taken by surprise as he dragged her off the barstool, staggered a little, but then her instincts and years of fighting kicked in and she brought the first guy to his knees and quickly had her blade against the other's throat.

When she was still trying to decide on her choice of words, someone coughed in the sudden silence of the tavern, and a woman's sharp voice rang through the room, the kind that let you instantly know the speaker commanded a great deal of authority (_like Hawke_).

"Your Arl has decided to grace you all with her presence tonight and she does not particularly fancy witnessing a barfight. It will certainly only lead to a whole lot of paperwork. So would you two gentlemen kindly get lost, and would you sheath your weapons, Isabela?"

At that she looked up, as the guys scrambled off, and Isabela squinted to make out the woman approaching her.

And then she remembered. Lenore, the warden. It was a pleasant memory, one she'd always held dear. Not merely because she'd bedded the Hero of Ferelden. She hadn't been the greatest lay, had obviously not had much experience, but there had been something about her...

When she'd approached her in the Pearl, Isabela's first thought had been 'stuck-up little ice queen'. Undoubtedly a noblewoman, even in her battleworn Grey Warden outfit. Stick up her ass, hair tied back in a severe knot, face haughty by nurture, Isabela knew the type. Or thought she did. She'd rarely been that wrong, but the little minx actually proposed to sleep with her in return for being taught how to duel. Isabela had been very taken with the idea at once, the little ice queen was beautiful, the complete opposite of her in both body type and colouring, slender, pale, so very pale, hair almost white, eyes a frosty blue, skin so light it was almost glowing. She'd wanted to see if she couldn't make her thaw, a little at least.

And then, once she'd taken her onto her ship, not only had she melted, she'd positively burned. Clumsy, but eager, so eager, fingers and lips exploring every inch of her, before Isabela had pushed her onto her back and dived between her readily splayed legs, making her scream. She'd been a fast learner, too, very keen on returning the favour. And it seemed it was true what they said about Grey Warden stamina. They had done it for hours. Isabela would have loved to steal her away, turn her into the perfect lover she could have been with a little practise, the great pirate she'd certainly have made.

_And then you would have dragged her into this whole Qunari mess_, a nagging voice inside her mind whispered, as the woman came to a halt in front of her. Isabela leant back and almost slipped off the counter. She hadn't had that much to drink, yet, had she? No, she was used to a whole lot more.

Lenore was still all cold beauty, but she wore a fancy seagreen dress, superior quality, expensive, she could tell, a pirate always knew the worth of things. Orlesian silk. Of course, Amaranthine was famous for it. She looked great in it. Her long, silver hair spilled down her back in a way that looked pretty, but seemed the slightest bit awkward, she kept brushing it back over her shoulders in a way that was quite at odds with her cool, controlled demeanor.

Isabela tried her best to be nonchalant, but it was hard these days.

And of course Lenore had to mention the ship.

"There is no ship!" she hissed. A small frown creased Lenore's brow, but then she smiled and touched Isabela's arm, warm and kind and real, and Isabela wanted to grab her and kiss her, certainly a terrible idea considering the circumstances, but at least it meant her libido wasn't dead yet.

"Why don't you tell me all about it? My table is over there. What are you having?"


	3. Chapter 3

Isabela wasn't quite as drunk as Lenore had assumed. The anger, at least, had nothing to do with alcohol. Rather the other way around. She'd let herself slump into the armchair opposite Lenore's and eyed the wine with an odd expression on her face.

"Aggregio Pavali," she muttered and gave a mirthless laugh.

"It might be too weak for your tastes."

"I'm not a red wine kind of woman."

"No, I suppose you're not. Whisky then?" She raised an eyebrow. "Rum?"

She gave a non-committal shrug and Lenore ordered the whisky. Now that they were sitting there, looking at one another, Isabela's expression became rather guarded.

"What's the Commander of the Grey doing alone in a tavern, dressed to the nines?"

"What are you doing in Amaranthine, without a ship?"

For a long, tense moment, they just stared at each other, then Lenore said with a shrug:

"It has been exactly ten years since the death of the archdemon. I'm celebrating."

Isabela frowned, but didn't say anything in reply. Instead she sighed deeply.

"I lost my ship almost as long ago. In a storm. While trying to escape a Qunari dreadnought."

Lenore clicked her tongue.

"Why were they after you?"

"I'm a pirate, sweet thing, why do you think they were after me? I'd stolen something of theirs. Something they really wanted back."

"What?"

Isabela rolled her eyes.

"Some sort of holy book. In any case, I got stranded in Kirkwall."

Lenore's mind put things together very quickly.

"Kirkwall? Some sort of holy book? Isabela, were you the reason for the Qunari uprising?"

Many versions of what had happened in Kirkwall four years ago had made their way to Ferelden. Her people had actually passed through the burning city. What it had come down to was that the Champion had fought the Arishok over a tome and its thief.

"I came back, alright? I had the book, I was gone, but then I turned around and brought it back, and Hawke had to play the hero..."

She quickly swallowed a large amount of whisky, then it just seemed to spill out of her:

"I came back for her, but she couldn't forgive me. And still I trudged along, like a kicked puppy, hoping she'd change her mind. I could even have had another ship if she hadn't been so damnably good! Instead, we had to fight abominations and templars because of that voice in Anders' head, and after Meredith's death, we all had to flee. I got stranded again, here of all places!"

Lenore didn't even have it in her to defend Amaranthine. And she really didn't want to think about Justice, and what Anders had done in an insane moment of misguided compassion. She'd been so angry back then, they had fought, he'd run off, like he'd always done before. She'd really expected him to be better than that. Void, she'd even expected Justice to be better than that.

She brushed the thought aside. Just another of so many 'what if's.

Isabela sighed deeply.

"Andraste's tits, just listen to me. I used to be fun once. Isn't there anything is this city that is fun?" She gave a Lenore a speculative look, all of a sudden. "You used to be fun. Are you still fun, sweet thing?"

"I have never been much fun to begin with," Lenore replied casually, masking bitterness with irony.

"Oh, I have memories that say otherwise. You used to be so eager."

A blush crept over Lenore's face.

"I bet you're the most interesting thing in Amaranthine."

Lenore battled with herself. There were hundreds of reasons not to do this. Her reputation, not that it really mattered, but also, Isabela was drunk and broken-hearted and vulnerable, even though it was hard to imagine the woman leering at her now could possibly be vulnerable. And those weren't exactly hundreds of reasons...

"Do you have a tub?"

Lenore blinked.

"What?"

"If you won't sleep with me, at least let this exhausted, grimy, stranded pirate take a bath."

"I suppose I can't deny you that small comfort," she replied, hiding a smile. "I'll even find you a room in the keep, you don't have to stay here."

"Thank you," Isabela said in a strangely soft voice. "It's appreciated."

. . .

It was quite dark inside the coach, but Lenore was still easy to make out. Isabela had a thing for her hair, she decided. She leant towards the other woman casually and twirled a silver strand around her forefinger, rubbed her thumb over it. It was just as soft as it looked. Lenore watched her stoically. It was hard to tell what she might be thinking.

_Noblewomen_. Isabela had bedded quite a few of them, mostly back in Antiva – the places she'd frequented later on were usually only visited by women of dubious reputations, like herself. They'd all been the same, unfazed among their peers, all hot and bothered in bed, and then kicked you out even faster than you could flee. Not that she'd ever wanted to stay. But perhaps that was an Antivan thing. Fereldens were different. Less secretive. Not that she could really compare. Hawke had never been a noble, not really. She'd always been an adventurer at heart. She'd also cared too much to make a good nob.

And Lenore... Lenore was more than ever an unknown. Perhaps it was unwise to try and throw the Hero of Ferelden into the same pot with anyone else at all.

A slender, unexpectedly calloused hand closed over her own. She expected Lenore to pry her hair from Isabela's grasp, but she did nothing of the kind. Just looked at her with that unnervingly inscrutable expression and started rubbing her thumb over her hand, like Isabela had done with her hair. The gentle touch was all Isabela needed to surge forward and capture her lips in a rough, hard kiss. Which Lenore somehow managed to soften at once, one hand stroking Isabela's cheek, the other on her waist. After only a brief moment, Isabela pulled back. Maker, she wanted to devour Lenore right there and then, but something about the woman had her on her guard.

Or perhaps it was herself she didn't trust anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

She had no shame, no inhibitions. Lenore found that admirable. Fascinating. Isabela had given a strangled cry at the sight of the tub full of hot water and thrown all her clothes off at once, not that there were a lot to begin with. Lenore was glad that she'd asked the servants to leave. The massive necklace came off, too. In the dim light of a few candles, Lenore wasn't sure, but she thought there was a thin scar at the base of her throat. The next moment, she stepped into the water and sank down in one fluid motion, then gave a deep, contented sigh.

"Do you want me to leave?" Lenore asked.

"Oh no, sweet thing. You can wash my back."

Isabela, obviously returned a little to a former, less bitter state, winked at her.

Lenore perched on a stool beside the tub, and watched Isabela wash herself languidly.

She had been in weird situations throughout her life. This shouldn't feel stranger than being in the fade or fighting broodmothers, dealing with Justice, intelligent darkspawn, archdemons, or that woman who insisted she was like a sister to her telling her she had to sleep with Lenore's lover.

Oh, that one still stung. She'd lost both of them that night.

But this was different. For one thing, it had nothing to do with her – vocation. There was nothing to fight here, nothing to kill, no bargains to strike in order to survive. In short, this was nothing Lenore knew how to deal with. She watched soap suds running down well-formed, muscular arms, white foam on bronze skin, and wondered what she was trying to accomplish here.

"You look like you're thinking too hard, Lenore. It's unbecoming."

"I know. A terrible habit." She knelt down beside the tub and cupped one of Isabela's impressive breasts gently in one hand, marvelling at the contrast.

"Yes, that's much better than thinking," Isabela purred and leant back, body undulating in the most enticing way. Lenore's thumb grazed a hardened nipple, then she trailed her fingers down Isabela's stomach, lingered at the top of her dark curls, then she took her hand away.

"Want me to wash your back?" she asked lowly.

Isabela let out a chuckle.

"Why, I'd prefer something else..."

But she shifted, sat up straight and drew her knees up to her chest, brushed her hair forward over one shoulder, so Lenore had access to her back.

Lenore had never washed somebody else. Part of her reflexively thought 'servant's work', another that she'd never been intimate enough with anyone to bathe with them.

A shame, really. She brushed her palms in circles over Isabela's back, cherishing the feeling of warm, wet skin, the soft curves of her sides, down to her hips, then up her spine again, tracing faded scars, of which Isabela had many. Most of them were so thin they'd probably been cuts, nothing extraordinary for a seasoned pirate, but one or two were broader and she wondered whether they'd come from a whip and whether that had been consensual or not. The sudden, highly unbidden memory of the bodies in Arl Howe's dungeon flashed before her inner eye, and she cursed the way her mind worked.

"Love play that got a bit out of hand. People always ask. Never let someone tie my up again after that," Isabela said suddenly, matter-of-factly, and Lenore realised she'd stopped her movements, hand resting on Isabela's shoulders. Instead of replying – really, what did you say to something like that? – she bent forward slowly and kissed Isabela's neck.

. . .

She hummed as she felt Lenore's lips against her neck, reached back to cup the other woman's head, bury her fingers in her hair.

It was an odd sort of mating dance, Isabela thought. Initiating something, then pulling back again the next moment. Perhaps, it suddenly occurred to her, Lenore was the kind of person who instinctively mirrored her partners' actions. Hadn't she been wild when Isabela had been wild, all those years ago? Wasn't she just as damnably restrained as Isabela was now, uncharacteristically trying to keep control of herself? Well, that just wouldn't do. The tentative, fleeting touches left her hungry, she wanted more. It had been too long, and Lenore was much too delicious for her to even consider passing this up.

"Do you want me to wash your hair, too?" Lenore asked, still maddeningly calm and business-like.

"If you want to, sweet thing."

Lenore's fingers against her scalp felt very pleasant, and Isabela closed her eyes, shivering slightly. She couldn't remember anyone ever doing this for her. Sure, she'd taken baths with people, had let them 'wash' her, which usually was just a lot of groping, had fucked in a tub more times than she could remember. But anyone ever taking the time to wash her hair? If she'd known how pleasant it was, she'd have asked for it before.

"That feels wonderful..." she muttered her encouragement. Spluttered as a pitcher of water was suddenly emptied over her head. "Give me a warning the next time you do that!"

Lenore behind her gave a chuckle that sounded very strange, coming from her, then continued rinsing Isabela's hair.

"Tell me about yourself, Lenore. What's going on in the life of the Hero of Ferelden these days?"

"I am delighted by the irony in your voice when you pronounce that title."

"Aw, don't take it the wrong way, sweetness. I am just so done with heroics of any kind."

Lenore's fingers stroked her neck, her shoulders, then she reached around her and let them play over Isabela's breasts again.

"But I meant it. I don't think I have met anyone in the last ten years who wasn't in awe or intimidated by me. It is refreshing to have someone use it so irreverently."

"Irreverence is what I do best!" Isabela exclaimed cheerfully and leant back again, watching Lenore play with her breasts. "Sooo, awe and intimidation? You sound almost like that didn't make them come to your bed in flocks."

"No, not exactly."

Lenore pulled her hand away and Isabela pouted.

"That was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it?" She turned around until she lay on her stomach, ass rising just above the waterline, air uncomfortably cool against the wet skin. She looked up at Lenore, who looked back down at her with one raised eyebrow.

"How could anyone not want to ravish you, gorgeous? It's a crime."

"You just say the sweetest things, Isabela." Lenore's lips twitched.

"How long has it been for you?"

Lenore tilted her head to one side.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Isabela batted her lashes, in what she knew came close to a travesty of seduction.

"How about we change that?"


	5. Chapter 5

Lenore stood shivering in the cool air of her bedroom. There was a small fire in the fireplace, but it did little to warm her as Isabela undressed her with dexterous fingers, albeit slowly, kissing every part of exposed skin. She sighed under the ministrations, but frowned, slightly concerned, when she felt Isabela's wet hair against her skin.

"I'm cold, Isabela, but you must be freezing."

"Don't worry, sweetness, we'll find a way to get warm."

She looked down at Isabela kneeling before her, as she finally removed her stockings and smallclothes, felt soft lips and sharp teeth against the skin of her thighs, hands cupping her ass. Then she stood abruptly and pulled Lenore against her, kissed her deeply. Lenore all but melted into the embrace, it had been so long since anyone had touched her. Everything Isabela did sent sparks through her, from the breasts pressing against her much smaller ones, the hands roaming her back, to the lips against hers, the tongue caressing her own. She let her hands rest on Isabela's generous hips, fingers digging hard into the soft skin as Isabela's lips travelled down her jaw and throat, nibling and biting in a way that made Lenore feel a little shaky on her legs. When Isabela snaked a hand between their bodies and nothing more than grazed Lenore's pubes, the sensation had her lean forward and cling to Isabela in order to remain standing.

"That long, hm?" Isabela purred against her throat, one arm steadying Lenore. "You poor thing, but it's all right, Isabela's here now to make things better."

She quickly pulled her the few feet towards the bed and pushed her down onto the sheets, then crawled after her, nudging Lenore's legs apart with one knee.

"Sweet thing," she muttered huskily, as her lips traced a line from Lenore's stomach up to her breasts. "Beautiful thing. How could anyone resist this?" Her lips closed around a small, hard nipple, sucked at it intently, warm, wet tongue swirling around it, while Lenore strained against her, pressed herself firmly against Isabela's leg.

"Isabela, please..."

With a satisfied smile, Isabela slid her hand down Lenore's body, trailed through the wispy, almost white hair on her mound, found the small bundle of nerves a little lower and circled it deftly with one finger. Lenore shuddered and gasped, rocked her hips against Isabela, one hand in Isabela's damp hair, the other clutching the sheets. Isabela let go of her breasts, traced lips and tongue down Lenore's body, too, spread her wide and buried her head between Lenore's thighs unceremoniously. Found a new target for the dedicated attention of lips and tongue, fingers pushing deep into her, making Lenore cry out, hips buckling. All it took was for Isabela to suck on her for a few more moments, and Lenore came hard, legs closing around Isabela's head as her cries rang through the room. Isabela continued lapping at her gently as she came down, fingers still moving in and out deliberately, and Lenore tensed and shuddered, coming once more.

"Oh Lenore," Isabela purred happily. "There's nothing more arousing than making someone as stoic as you scream." Lenore felt fingers against her temples and realised with some embarrassment that Isabela was wiping at her tears.

"I suppose you're just that good," she said weakly.

"I am, aren't I?" Isabela kissed her again and Lenore pulled her close. "Although, to be honest, I've hardly even started with you, dove."

"Thank the maker for Grey Warden stamina," Lenore muttered and stroked down Isabela's arm, entwined their hands briefly. "But I think it's your turn now, dear."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes."

. . .

Lenore woke with a slight start, then frowned as she felt an unfamiliar weight draped over her midsection. She turned her head a little, and smiled as she remembered. They must have fallen asleep at some point, though Lenore couldn't for the life of her recall settling down for sleep. It was just dawning outside. Isabela lay at her side, one leg flung over Lenore. Sleep made her look almost innocent. She tried to slip out of bed, careful not to wake the other woman, but yelped when she pulled away from Isabela – one of Isabela's hands was clenched firmly around a lock of her hair. At the sound, Isabela's eyes cracked open, and for a moment, Lenore could swear she saw Isabela's brain working to put together the puzzle of where she was and what had happened.

"Morning," she said lightly. "Care to give me back that strand of hair?"

Isabela's gaze lowered, then her eyebrows rose, and she let go of Lenore's hair as quickly as if she'd been burned.

"Thank you." Lenore finally sat up and brushed her very tangled hair back impatiently. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Something about Isabela's expression made her reach out and stroke her cheek gently.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Isabela said and pulled away the next instant. "Did we fall asleep during sex?"

There was a strain in what should have been a light, teasing comment, and Lenore frowned.

"I suppose."

"I should, uhm, probably go to my own room now."

Lenore just shrugged.

"I'll have to get up now, anyway. Stay here, go to your room, it's all the same to me. Just tell me, so I can send someone up with some breakfast." She looked around. "I think we left your clothes in the bathroom. I can lend you a robe."

Lenore rose fully and stretched languidly. She was often sore after journeys and battles, but today's small pains and stiffness made her feel oddly satisfied, every ache resulting in a very pleasant memory. She walked over to her dresser and took a comb, trying to disentangle her hair with a lot of cussing, then blinked when she caught her reflection in the mirror. Maker, why did she have to bruise so easily? Not that she minded anyone knowing that she'd taken a lover, and most of the lovebites would be covered by her armour, but the ones on her throat would show.

Isabela watched Lenore almost absent-mindedly. Part of her registered that she was an amazing sight, standing naked in front of the mirror, combing that long silver hair, like something sprung from an erotic fairytale. But a more urgent part of her couldn't stop thinking that it had been wrong to sleep in her bed, she'd broken one of her iron rules of sexual conduct. Next thing you knew, people were giving you puppy eyes and talking about love, then trying to convince you that they had you all figured out.

She hated mimicking the words of that other conversation, the one that still made her stomach clench painfully after all those years, but she had the urgent need to make things clear very fast:

"You don't intend to bring feelings into this, do you?"

Lenore turned around and just raised her eyebrows, then seemed to consider her words for a moment.

"I have never had much luck with feelings. I'd rather we enjoyed this as long as it lasts, no strings attached. Besides, I have my duties here and you don't seem like you plan on staying in Amaranthine for long. As long as you do, though, feel free to stay here. Maybe share a bit of your fighting experience with my recruits in exchange for board and lodging and long, hot baths?"

Isabela was immensely relieved and felt herself relax at once. She gave Lenore a smile.

"I think I can do that."

"Oh, and please try not to seduce the other wardens. Some of them are already... uncomfortable with taking orders from a woman. My special buxom ladyfriend hitting on them might just give them ideas."

"And now you've taken all the fun out of it!"

"Am I not fun enough?"

Isabela rolled her eyes, but smiled.

"You are. I think you'll do for a while."

"I'm so flattered."


	6. Chapter 6

Lenore stood in the courtyard, leaning against the wall, happily watching Isabela put their bargain into action. She had to keep from sniggering in a very uncommanderlike way every time Isabela landed a particularly hard hit, when one of the recruits was either too distracted by her scant clothing or only attacked half-heartedly from a misplaced sense of courtesy.

"What in Andraste's name is she doing here?"

Lenore didn't even turn to Nathaniel, just straightened a little and said:

"She's sharing her fighting techniques with our rogues. Also setting some heads straight. Very useful. Oh look at that. That must've hurt. Highly effective." Then she finally cast a glance at him. "You know her?"

"Met her in the company of that Hawke person in the deep roads. She wasn't happy when Hawke agreed to help me find the other Wardens."

"Hm, yes, she does not do highly dangerous things out of the goodness of her heart. She's weird like that."

Nathaniel gave her a dark look that made her want to keep winding him up. She fought the urge.

"Let me rephrase my initial question, _Commander_. How did she end up training our recruits?"

"I ran into her last night at the Crown and Lion. The issues in Kirkwall have stranded her here, I offered her a place to stay in exchange for this."

"You knew here before?"

"Met her in Denerim all those years ago."

_Back when your father used to torture people._

"In the Pearl, actually." She didn't even know why she had to add that.

"I see."

They watched the scene for a while, then Nathaniel said suddenly:

"Are you sleeping with her?"

Lenore didn't take her eyes off Isabela, but inwardly she cringed. Damn Nathaniel's persistent habit of always speaking his mind. And why did she have to bruise so easily?

"Yes. Not that it is any of your business," she replied coldly.

"Is this proper behaviour for the Warden-Commander?"

She'd almost have laughed. Did he really think he had her there?

"Having sex? I didn't know there was a chastity vow included when I accepted the position." She turned to glare at him coldy. "Didn't stop you, either. Hypocrite. And just look at them. They're learning so much. A good deal of techniques, but also that you should not let yourself get distracted during a fight, no matter how attractive your opponent. Darkspawn isn't all we have to fight. Ever met a desire demon?"

"You're a much better fighter than she is."

Lenore pursed her lips.

"Please don't do this, Nate." She turned away again. "And I'm not better, just different. Not everyone fares well with the amount of stealth I use. Not everyone's good with a bow, either. Let someone show them a more confrontational way of fighting."

"If you think that's best."

And he stalked off in a way that made Lenore want to throw one of her daggers at him, just for good measure.

"Hey, don't I know that guy? I've seen more impressive brooding than that, but not by much."

Isabela had left the recruits to lick their wounds and sidled up to Lenore.

"Apparently you met in the Deep Roads."

"Oh! Of course. How could I forget. The only time something Aveline said actually made sense. Though I remember thinking he was a hot piece of..."

"Please don't finish that sentence."

Isabela looked at Lenore's strained expression and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh?"

"Years ago, didn't work, his father killed my family, I killed his father, terrible idea from the start," Lenore pressed out. "Can we please leave it at that?"

"Andraste's knickers, that's quite the story."

Isabela made a mental note to expand on that story some time in the future.

"You did very nicely with the recruits."

"I expected better from the girls, but they were just as distracted as the boys. Though I'll admit, it is flattering."

Fighting had made her feel so much better, yet. She leant in close and stroked Lenore's cheek briefly. She'd done her hair up, looked so much like the first time they'd met, a few more lines in her face here and there, perhaps a sharper look about her, but still. Lovely little ice queen.

"Will you let down your hair for me later?" she asked lowly.

"You really like it, don't you? Last night was a special occasion... make tonight special enough and I'll consider it," Lenore flirted, with the heady thought that she was being reckless, not during war or in battle, but in her own lovelife, and that she rather loved it.

"You're such a minx. You just wait and see where that gets you."

. . .

The Keep was not exactly a place after Isabela's heart. Not enough wooden planks, not enough gentle swaying, but if she stood on the battlements and closed her eyes, the smell of the harbour carrying on the wind as it whipped her hair back, she could almost pretend she was at sea.

_Well, beggars can't be choosers_, she thought firmly, _and that's all I am right now._

The company wasn't particularly great, either. Except for Lenore, of course, who was fun. The Wardens were an odd, mismatched lot, not at all the impressive collection of characters she was used to. Though she had to admit that she could easily discern their worth. She'd watched them train for a week now, and had to acknowledge that they were disciplined, highly talented fighters. But that Nathaniel Howe was all but glaring at her every time she encountered him. And there was a crazy Dalish woman, and not the fun kind of crazy. And the stench coming from that dwarf!

Andraste's tits, she missed Varric. How he'd known that there was not merely black and white, had understood the intrinsic worth of selfishness. The fun they'd had spinning tales about everyone's love lives, bets about whose flirting Norah might reciprocate (neither, it had turned out the waitress had a thing for crossdressing elves, Jethann had informed her). And the chesthair...

She missed Merrill's wide-eyed innocence, too, all her wonderfully clueless comments, and Lady Man-Hands fondly calling her a variation on the theme of 'whore'. Sweet little Bethany, whom she had thoroughly corrupted with her preferred reading material. And Fenris, all deep voice and cold smouldering grace, whom she could have taken to bed, but for some reason (_Hawke_), she'd refrained from doing so. Even Prince Chastity had been fun to mock.

There was only one of them she'd gladly never see again. She would never forgive Anders. For worming his way into Hawke's heart. For starting the rebellion that had her flee Kirkwall. And most of all, for the way Hawke had stood by him, even though he had blown up an entire maker-be-damned chantry, could forgive him, when she hadn't forgiven her.


	7. Chapter 7

"There you are."

She opened her eyes to find Lenore leaning onto the parapet next to her, looking into the distance, where the sea was shimmering in a rather rare instance of Ferelden sunlight.

"Wishing you were out there?"

Sometimes Lenore had an irritating way of speaking to people without looking at them.

"You're very sneaky, aren't you? I didn't hear you at all."

"It's a talent."

"Do you regret it? Becoming a Warden?" Isabela asked suddenly.

"Don't ask me about regrets, Isabela. One always triggers the next." She sighed, then said anyway: "I honestly don't know. If none of this had happened, no Blight, if my family hadn't been killed, I might have ended up just another lady in Denerim. Married someone suitable, had children, might have gotten involved in politics anyway. I was prepared to do all that. I might have liked it. I might not have known what I was missing, fighting for my life and everyone else's every other day, being tainted by Darkspawn blood, the nightmares. I don't know what's worse, running around the Deep Roads covered in gore, or not being able to do so, because I have to deal with Amaranthine's problems and organise the Fereldan Wardens." She turned to Isabela, gave her a small smile. "There's no point dwelling on it, though, things are as they are. I am not unhappy. You seem to regret a lot, though."

Isabela tensed. It was her turn to look away now.

"I should have run away before my mother had the chance to sell me into marriage. I was pretty, I was smart, I would have made my way. At worst, I'd have ended up a whore. Not so different from being married, really."

She could feel Lenore's eyes on her, but kept her own gaze resolutely trained on the horizon.

"Zevran talked about you, once you'd been mentioned. Told me what went down with your husband."

"You shouldn't trust a word he says." _Neither should you trust me._ She'd changed the story so often, she almost didn't know what the truth was, anymore. "You mentioned me to him? Why?"

"Oh, I didn't. Morrigan kept complaining about me vanishing for hours with a pirate harlot. That... peaked his interest. She had a way of complaining about my personal choices, you'd have thought she had an interest herself. Told me she'd changed her mind later on, that she'd rather I go back to my pirate whore – sorry – than watch me and Alistair make puppy eyes at one another."

"You slept with the king?" Isabela blinked at her.

"He wasn't the king back then."

"You could have been queen!"

"Yes, that idea came up a lot," Lenore sighed.

"Why did you refuse?"

Lenore tensed.

"Because I should have died, not lived, selfish as I was, to become Queen of Ferelden."

Her hands balled into fists, and for the first time, Isabela thought, the Warden had lost a little of that cool composure she otherwise only ever seemed to relinquish between the sheets.

There was a story there, and she found she wanted to know it. Wished she had Varric's way of coaxing every last secret from people. But she was not the kind of person others trusted easily. Most of the time, she considered other people's emotions little more than a nuisance. But there was one way she knew how to deal with Lenore. She took a step toward her, took on of those tightly clenched fists and pried it open gently.  
"You're tense, dove. Let me help you with that." She lifted Lenore's hand to her lips, kissed the pulse point on her wrist, then moved her lips up her thumb, licked the tip, then sucked on it slowly, for good measure. Lenore looked surprised for a moment, then relaxed a little. Isabela sought her eyes and increased the pressure as she saw a slight blush creeping over Lenore's cheeks.

"Why don't we finish this conversation in your bedroom, sweet thing?"

. . .

As she was bent over her dresser gracelessly, Lenore wondered for a moment if she was making it too easy for Isabela to distract her. Then again, she had come looking for her, and hadn't sex already been on her mind as she'd spotted the pirate standing on the battlements, wind tearing at her hair and the flimsy thing she called a blouse?  
But then Isabela pulled down her smallclothes and for a long time after that, Lenore didn't think at all.

"So," Isabela said softly, stretched out next to Lenore on the bed, bodies cooling from their exertions, "Why does a sweet, hot, eager little thing like you think she should be dead instead of queen?"

Lenore rolled over onto her stomach and was rewarded with a hand immediately moving to her ass. "You don't want to hear about all this. I bet you have interesting stories to tell. Funny ones. Hot ones," she replied vaguely, even though a part of her wanted to talk about this. She'd never talked about it to anyone, Alistair hadn't cared to, and she couldn't blame him.

"Let's make a deal. You tell me, and in exchange you'll get a rousing tale of love and lust between a guard captain and her subordinate."

Lenore raised her eyebrows.

"That sounds... nice?"

"_Affair at the Barracks _was a big seller! Varric had to change the names, or Aveline would have killed us all..." Isabela sniggered.

She frowned.

"You've lost me there."

Isabela moved swiftly, straddled Lenore's back, and ran a single finger up and down her spine, making Lenore shiver.

"I think you want to tell me, dove. Get it off your chest. Or back."

Lenore pressed her cheek against the pillow, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maker, she _did_ want to tell someone.

"I haven't talked about this to a single person in ten years. It's... before we slew the archdemon. There was a ritual. It was blood magic. Otherwise one of us, Alistair or me, the Warden slaying the archdemon, would have died with it."

"So you're feeling guilty because there was blood magic involved? That's it?"

Lenore buckled then, threw a surprised Isabela off, turned to her and huffed indignantly.

"No, Isabela, that's not it. Maker, if that had been the only decision..." She sat up and drew her knees to her chest.

"Morrigan came up with it. She said if Alistair slept with her, she'd conceive, and if he killed the archdemon, its soul, the soul of an old god, would not destroy him, but instead pass on to the unborn child. And I made that decision. I told him he had to sleep with that woman he hated, else one of us would die, and I let a witch with no moral compass whatsoever bear a child with the soul of an old god, all because I was so desperately looking for a way to get out of this alive."

A hand on her shoulder, patting her awkwardly.

"It wasn't fair to force you to make that kind of choice."

"Life isn't fair, Isabela. You surely know that better than most."

Isabela snorted.

"You were what, twenty? Of course you wanted to live! You'd just been introduced to life's pleasures by a dashing pirate captain."

That made Lenore smile the slightest bit.

"Someone else would just have sent Alistair to his death. He would have done it, wouldn't he?"

Lenore turned her face away and shrugged, feeling just a little like a petulant child.

"Ugh, heroes!" Isabela grabbed her chin roughly and forced her to look at her. "What do you want to hear, Lenore? That you were a bad girl? Want me to spank you? Want to hear that the world would be a better place without you? You know that's not true. You may think that all this here, leading Wardens, dealing with politics, is your penitence, but that's not true, either. You'd do this out of some stupid, annoying sense of duty, even if you'd never been put up to that decision. You might not torture yourself like this, you might not punish yourself by keeping your distance to everyone around you, hiding behind that cold aloofness, not letting on how lonely you are, but you'd still..."

"That's enough, Isabela. It's quite enough."

She pulled back and turned her face away, heart racing, all of a sudden.

"It was wrong to bring this up. Let's not do that kind of thing again. I don't let feelings out, you don't let them in. Seems like a perfectly dysfunctional arrangement."

Isabela looked at her, frowning at that last comment. There it was, people always thought they had you figured out. Then again, she had thrown quite a lot of that at Lenore, too. She shouldn't have said all that, probably, but that damn virtuousness made her blood boil. Why was she drawn to that kind of person? What was wrong with her?

And why did she want to slap that carefully neutral expression off Lenore's face?

After all, she really didn't need her feelings. It made no sense.

"If that's what you want, sweet thing," she said, trying to mimic Lenore's lofty tone, then slid off the bed, picked up her clothes. "I feel like I've been overstaying my welcome already, anyway." Slid into her smallclothes, pulled her blouse on, fumbled with the lacings of her corset.

"Where will you be going?" Lenore asked, as Isabela picked up her daggers from the floor.

"Denerim. I need to make some coin, and there's always work in a city like that. Has to be."

"Don't get into trouble."

Isabela just rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure I will. I always do."

She turned to Lenore, who was looking at her impassively, still sitting with her head on her knees, all that damnably beautiful hair spilling around her, making Isabela want to touch it, in spite of everything.

"There's a party of Wardens leaving for Denerim tonight, you can catch a ride."

Isabela nodded slowly, after a moment, softening a little.

"Sounds like a good idea. And... thanks for picking me up."

She made to leave, but Lenore said lowly: "Wait." She'd gotten off the bed and approached Isabela quickly, came to a halt in front of her.

"Let's not part like this."

Isabela cocked an eyebrow.

"How do you want to part?"

Lenore's fingertips skimmed her cheek, and Isabela let herself be kissed altogether too gently. She wasn't sure what Lenore was trying to convey. An apology? A mere farewell?

"I rather enjoyed this last week. Thank you, too. There are always Wardens in Denerim. Send word occasionally that you're still alive, won't you?"

"Pirates don't write letters," Isabela said almost automatically.

"Troublemakers can always use friends in high places," Lenore replied with a smile. "And a bed to sleep in should they ever find themselves stranded again."

"If you put it that way... We'll see."


	8. Chapter 8

"So, you and the Commander?"

"What about us?"

Isabela looked down at the heavily tattooed face of the dwarven woman sitting next to her. The coach bumbled along the Pilgrim's Path with a sickening, rocking motion, making Isabela quite landsick. She didn't mind discussing her sex life, not even in front of a handful of Wardens all packed into one coach, but she was not in the mood right now.

"You haven't been exactly discreet. Not judging, here, just curious. Stone knows she deserved a break. I believe I have never before seen her that carefree."

Something tugged unpleasantly at Isabela's stomach. Just motion sickness, she told herself.

"I'm Sigrun, by the way."

Isabela groaned

"I need to keep my mouth shut," she managed to press out, before clamping her lips shut.

The dwarf gave her an amused look, even though she scooted away from her best as she could, which wasn't far in the cramped, enclosed space.

"I should have died long ago," Sigrun said conversationally. "Legion of the Dead. But the Commander always just has another task for me. Honestly, I don't mind too much. And the surface is interesting! That makes me a bad dwarf, I guess. Have you known the Commander long?"

Isabela shrugged, then shook her head.

"Huh. You looked close."

Maker, if only she would shut up.

"She was with Nate for a while, but that didn't work out. Told him no one loves a grump, but did he listen to me? Oh no, he looked more of a sourpuss each day. Kept pushing her, until she would turn to ice and use that sharp voice of hers, reply something very much to the point, very hurtful. I missed the Legion a lot those days. When you're practically dead already, things are so much clearer. You take what you can, all the relief, all the warmth, all the comfort, without any of the insecuries, because that's just a luxury you can't afford, when you all could die at any moment. And you give back what you can. Stone knows it was never very much, but it was everything we had."

Ugh, a dwarven philosopher. Great.

"Fate threw us together somehow and we didn't question it. On the surface, everything is a lot more complicated. It's not made easier by the only sane and not drunk all day dwarf around being more interested in stone walls than what's under this armour."

Isabela cocked an eyebrow. There was no force in Thedas great enough to make her pass up a lewd remark, not even her own stomach.

"You can show _me_ what's beneath your armour, sweet thing."

Sigrun just laughed. The men, who'd pretended to be busy or asleep when she'd been talking before, suddenly stared quite avidly in their direction.

"Tempting, but you're... kind of not my type. At all."

"Suit yourself."

"Do you play cards?" Sigrun asked suddenly.

Isabela turned to her and smiled dangerously.

"Only for money."

. . .

Lenore stood in the courtyard, trying her hand, once more, and quite pathetically, at archery, as a familiar figure strode up to her.

"So your friend left?"

"For Denerim, yes. I told you she wouldn't stay long." Lenore released the arrow and cringed as it landed way off centre. "You're a little distracting, Nate."

He laughed, actually. Lenore didn't think she'd seen him do that in a long time.

"Don't blame it on me. You've always been lousy with a bow."

"Thank you for the encouragement."

"It's not your fault. I've seen you squint. How is your eyesight?"

She pursed her lips.

"My eyesight is just fine."

"Both eyes?"

She rolled her eyes, but let the bow sink.

"Just stay with your daggers and let me do the ranged attacks." He cast her a sideways glance. "Do you miss her?"

"Nate." She hated this. He was more than a friend, and less, because things had been ugly for a while, and later they'd been very polite, very distant, for years, which she was good at. But now this. "Why do you have to be jealous? You and me don't work. And Isabela, she's... Isabela. She doesn't do feelings. And I'm not good at that, either."

"You were happy when she was here. Now you're not. It's as easy as that. You're trying to hide it, but I've known you for a long time. I may not understand what you see in her, but I can worry about you, as a friend, as a former lover, as a fellow warden even."

It would have been so easy to lean against that broad chest, just for a moment. But not fair.

"I am fine, Nate. But thanks for asking. It's appreciated."

In any case, she thought, you didn't tie someone like Isabela down. She'd wanted to leave, because Lenore had pushed her away, no less. Because Isabela had been painfully right about her. The last person she'd have expected that from. It had made her panic.

Asking her to stay would have been pointless, she'd probably have run out even faster.

And she still wanted Hawke, anyway. This wasn't even a 'what if'. It was a very clear 'better not'.

And if it hurt a little, if she missed the unexpected ease with which they'd been able to talk (most of the time), if she missed the outrageous stories Isabela could spin, or how unusually relaxed she was around her, so what? She could shrug it off.

It was better than letting herself pine like a child for someone she could never have.


	9. Chapter 9

_[Two updates today, because they really didn't make sense as one chapter. Also, maybe the story-within-a-story thing is weird, I don't know, but I liked writing those...]_

* * *

Denerim was... better than Amaranthine. One good thing had come from the entire Hawke thing, she'd grown remarkably as a rogue during her time in Kirkwall. There was a lot of work for someone with her savvy. She'd found herself a tavern, shabbier even than the Hanged Man (whatever people had said, Varric had given the establishment a certain kind of seedy grandeur), rented a room. But in order to make enough coin to get herself a ship as quickly as possible, she had to renounce a good deal of her most favourite vices. It was hard to resist going to the Pearl every night, but if she needed a lay, she knew she didn't have to pay for it. It would have been easier, and certainly better in most cases, but she made do with seducing whoever looked least scruffy.

Once she had a ship again, she'd set sail for Antiva. They had the best whorehouses in all of Thedas.

She also had to moderate her drinking, which was a little harder. She didn't want to know what Fereldens put into their cheapest booze, but as long as it got her shitfaced, she didn't care all that much.

Sigrun usually dragged a few other wardens over once a week to play cards, full of tales of their exploits, and of how King Alistair dropped by the Grey Wardens from time to time, and for some reason going on about whatever news she'd gotten from the Warden-Commander, casually, but giving Isabela those odd, keen looks. Despite that, Isabela found herself warming to the quirky dwarf soon, even though she was almost certain Sigrun was cheating as much as she did herself. The innocent look that never left her face during the game was a remarkable feat. Between them, they easily bled the other players dry. Isabela wondered how Sigrun managed to convince them to join them anyway.

"Tell your Commander I'm still alive," she always said when Sigrun left again.

Secretly, those nights were the highlight of her week, and that made her feel very, very pathetic.

Isabela often retired to her room afterwards and read one of her more saucy books. Sometimes, if the mood struck her, she'd write something herself, but lately she seemed to have lost her talent for easy, smutty purple prose, and was coming up with these... _things_ instead.

She sat at the small, rackety table, propped her head up with one hand, quill in the other.

_'She stood, quivering under his desiring gaze, trying to move, but he had her under his spell'_

Isabela quickly crossed out everything. That wasn't what she'd meant to write at all. For a while, she let the quill's feathers stroke her chin, then she started anew.

_'The lovely princess was frozen, and only the touch of true desire could make her melt. The dark, handsome, brooding prince approached her, intent on breaking the curse. His strong hands trailed over her naked form, causing small rivulets of meltwater to run down her slender body. He felt victorious then and continued his ministrations, but the initial triumph turned into frustration as he realised she was still cold and stiff, and nothing he did could warm her, soften her even enough for him to enter her'_

She stared at the words. What was wrong with her?

Isabela huffed and put the quill aside. Poured herself a drink.

Oh, to the Void with it! These were her fantasies, she could indulge them if she so pleased. There could be no harm in that.

_'The dark, dashing pirate queen swaggered up to the frozen princess. Small traces of meltwater had turned into ice again, leaving tracks down her pale, blue-white cheeks. She was the saddest and most beautiful thing the pirate queen had ever seen. She stroked her cheek then and bent forward to kiss her cold lips. Her experienced hands began caressing the slender curves of the frozen princess, the hard peaks of her lovely, small breasts, and she started tracing her lips down the moistening skin of her throat, paid lavish attention to both cool, pebbled buds, while slowly caressing her way down her stomach. She reached between the frozen princess' legs, to find her core slick with meltwater. She stroked her there, patiently, eventually sank to her knees and sought the princess' pearl. It had a bluish tinge that made the pirate queen shiver with a sudden, altogether alien bout of compassion, and she started warming it with her lips, her tongue. The princess tasted of first snow, and longing, and secrets, and the pirate queen rubbed her tongue faster against the cold flesh, listening to the satisfying sound of droplets of water dripping to the floor, forming small puddles around the princess' feet. She started using her tongue then to warm every part of the frozen princess, and after working patiently for half an eternity, lips numb with cold, there was the sudden clink of shattering glass, and a vast gush of water cascaded down the princess' body, as she took a shuddering breath and started trembling in the pirate queen's arms'_

Isabela cursed and tore the page out of the book, scrunched it up and threw it over her shoulder.

She got up angrily, poured herself another drink, then started pacing the tiny room.

Maker's balls, it had only been a week! One week of sleeping with a woman she barely knew (the best kind), of light pillow talk, all exaggerated heroics and mock epic tales, one week of sneaking out in the small hours, pretending she couldn't feel Lenore's inquisitive gaze on her as she struggled into her clothes and walked out the door.

Why didn't she have herself under control anymore?

First Hawke, then Lenore... Falling for the same type again, the same heroics, the same nauseating sense of duty, she was a basket case. She had offered her heart to someone once, had allowed herself to be vulnerable, and she'd been rejected. Never again. She couldn't offer much to a woman like that, she'd learned her lesson. No point at all in dwelling on it. No point in even thinking about it.

No point in missing Lenore.


	10. Chapter 10

Lenore had avoided Denerim as much as she could, that last decade. Too many painful memories. Duty had brought her here a few times, but luckily not that often. Now, however, it seemed the Grey Wardens could no longer keep out of politics, and the Arl of Amaranthine could afford that even less. Not if things with Orlais got critical. Amaranthine depended on their trade.

She pressed her cheek against the smooth satin lining of the coach, looking out at the rainy streets. In her youth, she had spent many a Season in Denerim, attended balls and banquets, all the time longing to be back home, to just run off into the fields and forests on her own. One did not run off in Denerim. She sighed softly. She didn't want to go to Alistair's soiree, everything inside her rebelled against the idea of a night of pretending nothing had ever happened, trying not to catch his eye, dealing with the crème de la crème of Ferelden, the Marches, and probably Orlaisian nobility. Amaranthine's nobles were provincial, she could deal with them, but it had been too long since she'd been trained for this kind of thing. And even then, no one had expected her to actually take an important role. Her brother would be Teyrn, not her. All they'd ever taught her was how to dance and smile and address people, hundreds of things you mustn't forget to do, and a thousand you mustn't ever do in any case, and how to be a decorative element in the background, smiling and nodding, and _just_ _don't worry your pretty little head about it, dear_.

In the meantime, though, she had grown used to giving orders in her Commander voice, and that was a really bad idea when dealing with nobles.

So, because it was all she could think to do, Lenore had donned a dress that had rendered everyone present in the Grey Warden quarters speechless. It was fine from the waist down, but the top half was weirdly reminiscent of that thing Morrigan had always worn.

"Just don't let them smell your fear," she muttered under her breath as she entered the palace.

It was a small soiree, considering, just about two dozen people, but they were definitely the movers and shakers in Ferelden, Orlais and the Marches.

"Commander."

He could have said anything else. Her first name. Her last name. It would have made power-relations between them very clear. But to refer to her as his superior...

"Your Majesty."

Alistair kissed her hand, lips brushing her skin very lightly, not the way it was supposed to be done. He looked at her, and it would have been terribly rude to avert her eyes, so she met his gaze. So much older. So much less innocent.

"To say you look ravishing would not do you justice."

"Thank you, sire."

Hazel eyes scrutinised her for a moment, then he bowed his head slightly and lead her into his study, to her surprise.

"We need to talk in private for a moment, Commander. I may be King of Ferelden, but I am still a Grey Warden at heart. Nothing short of death will ever change that."

She nodded slowly.

"I know you cannot take sides in this conflict, not as the Warden-Commander."

She nodded again.

"It's not my decision to make, either. Weisshaupt..."

His turn to nod.

"I know. But I need to know where you stand. Not as the Commander of the Grey, but as the Hero of Ferelden. As Lenore Cousland."

"My stance on templars hasn't changed. I can tentatively support your politics, but I'll have to make it very clear I'm not speaking as Warden-Commander of Ferelden."

"That's all I could have asked for."

"As Arl of Amaranthine, however, I implore you to keep peace with Orlais. A trade embargo would be an economic disaster for the city."

"No one wants war with Orlais. I'm doing the best I can. Celene is reasonable, but demanding, and not all-powerful. And we cannot yet predict how the Mage-Templar-War will affect all this. If the Order is weakened enough, this could be a blow to Orlais as well, improving our situation. But if the templars gain the upper hand and Ferelden supported freedom for mages..."

"What's the Divine's stance on all this? Should she not be able to appease the conflict?"

"Not without Anders' head on a stick. Which is what Starkhaven demands, too, by the way. Prince Vael is present tonight. So is Marian Hawke."

Lenore raised her eyebrows, curiosity peaking.

"Hawke is here? How much weight does her word carry?"

"A lot more than anyone had expected. Her support for the mages has swayed many people in the Marches. That woman could charm the horns off a Qunari."

Lenore bit her lip. She hadn't realised how much was at stake.

"So one wrong word at this party could start another war?"

"It's a very inofficial gathering. Maker, I hope not."

He rubbed his forehead.

"What about assassins? How safe are your guests?"

"I've taken every precaution I can. And between you and Hawke, I hoped no assassin would feel suicidal enough to try something."

"Then I'll keep my eyes open."

They looked at each other, then Alistair broke eye contact.

"I haven't heard from you in a long time."

"I didn't think you wanted to."

"I've grown up, Lenore. We did what we had to do. I said some things back then... I shouldn't have."

She closed her eyes.

"You had every right to be angry."

"No. Not after I opposed Loghain's conscription..."

"He'd have been a hero. It wouldn't have been fair." She shook her head. Those were almost the exact words he'd said to her that day.

He smiled sadly, and said what she had, back then.

"Life isn't fair." Reached out to touch her cheek, then faltered, and briefly touched her shoulder instead. "I know that now."

"Don't you think I should have died?" she couldn't help asking, suddenly. "A stronger woman might not have been so afraid..."

"You? Maker, no. If anything, I should have died. I'd been a Warden longer than you. I was never as much use as you. My only redeeming quality had been an accident of birth. I was a political puppet. And Anora would have ruled with more prowess than me..."

"You made, and still make, a good king."

"And Thedas still needs the Hero of Ferelden. Your death wouldn't have helped anyone."

Lenore took a deep breath.

"Thank you for saying that," she said quietly. Then she leant forward and put a kiss to his cheek.

"You shouldn't keep your guests waiting any longer."

"No, I shouldn't. Hey, there's an excellent cheese I had imported from Orlais, you'll have to try it!"

And just like that, Lenore found herself smiling at him, like she'd done as a much younger, a lot more carefree version of herself.

. . .

It had been going well so far. Alistair had put her at ease like she'd never expected, and while she did not enjoy making forced, polite conversation, and she had little appreciation for smelly cheeses, the evening progressed smoothly enough. She'd even danced with Prince Vael, who was nothing if not a gentleman and a remarkable dancer. Not even once did his gaze travel down her deeply plunging neckline. Just as chaste as Isabela had said.

"I've heard a lot about you, milady. The Hero of Ferelden."

She smiled sweetly, sitting down again after the dance.

"And I have heard a few things about you, too, your highness."

"Oh? I didn't know I had a reputation."

She fought hard not to laugh.

"We have a common acquaintance. I'll admit her tales had a certain angle, though."

"And who would that be?"

"A pirate named Isabela."

"Oh. Isabela?"

His face briefly showed both pity and condescension, and something inside Lenore was disproportionately incensed at once.

"Yes. I consider her a friend," she said tersely.

"Well, she never valued my opinion." Then he suddenly gave a lopsided smile. "She was funny, though, I have to admit it. Until she got so unhappy over Hawke. She had great potential. She could have used it for so much more. A strong, independent woman, all caught up in her own selfishness, too afraid to let herself be more than that. A pity."

"Please don't say these things about her."

He bowed his head slightly.

"My apologies if I have offended, Lady Cousland."

Lenore nodded graciously enough.

"Has Starkhaven been hit hard by the uprisings?" she quickly changed the subject.

"Yes. Although, to my consternation, I must admit that the chaos made it easier for me to take back the throne."

"You were there when it all started? In Kirkwall? With Hawke?"

Anger crossed his face, then sadness.

"I understand that some mages have suffered at the hands of some templars. And it was shocking to discover that the Knight Commander had been possessed without anyone noticing. But what Anders did..." He shook his head. "The Grand Cleric was like a mother to me. How many innocents did he kill that day? I don't understand why Hawke stood by him."

"But you came here today, knowing she'd be there as well?" Lenore asked tentatively.

"I have the greatest respect for King Alistair. And this war is bigger than... bigger than my personal concerns. She has been staying away from me all night, I've hardly even glimpsed her. I'll admit, I wanted to take vengence, on both of them. I threatened to. But I had to realise it would have been very unwise, people in the Marches love her. I'd have had a very own rebellion on my hands if I'd turned against her. It may be cowardly, but Starkhaven deserves all the stability I can give it."  
"It's not cowardly. It's a compromise in favour of your people. It's the choice of a good ruler."

He bowed his head once more.

"Thank you, milady."

The next moment, an Orlaisian noblewoman had blushingly asked the prince for a dance, and Lenore quickly excused herself, lest someone tried the same on her.

Alistair was nowhere to be seen, and she had the suspicion that there may have been more guests than the ones in the ballroom. Perhaps he had the Empress herself hidden away from the riffraff? Lenore slipped out of the ballroom after a moment's consideration and went exploring. She'd promised to keep an eye out for assassins, hadn't she? As good an excuse as any.


	11. Chapter 11

She sneaked from shadow to shadow, listening in to the occasional conversation, enjoying herself immensely. If she could have been anything else but Warden-Commander, she thought with a hint of longing, she would have been a spy. An Orlaisian bard, like Leliana. That was what she'd been made for. It gave her the oddest thrills.

She stopped dead, though, when she suddenly heard an unexpectedly familiar voice.

"...won't lead anywhere. It's all charades. Backroom deals and everyone has an angle. We shouldn't have come."

"Unless you want to fight all of Thedas, and Maker knows not even you can do that, please be reasonable, love. The king is sympathetic to our cause."

"An ex-templar, of all people!"

"Joining them was not his choice. He was just a boy, a royal bastard, who had to be hidden away somewhere. And there are many ex-templars who've joined our cause, you never complain about them."

Suddenly, without a warning, the tapestry Lenore was hiding behind was pulled away and she looked into the inquisitive face of an unfamiliar, quite attractive woman. She'd cocked a black eyebrow elegantly, lips twitching, and asked:

"What do we have here?"

There was something striking about her, Lenore couldn't quite put her finger on it. Perhaps it was simple charism. Lenore straightened and lifted her head, then asked calmly:

"Was that Anders?"

Perfectly neutral expression.

"I have no idea what you are talking about. But if some sort of Anders had been present a moment ago, rest assured that he wouldn't have stayed around for anyone to find him."

Lenore rolled her eyes.

"Yes, he's always been more slippery than an eel."

The woman smiled, a very charming, utterly captivating smile.

"Marian Hawke."

"The Champion of Kirkwall?"

Of course it had to be her.

She just laughed.

"Oh, no one is using that title anymore, not after what happened. Unless they're trying to be ironic."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Hawke. I am Lenore Cousland."

Marian nodded.

"I know. The Hero of Ferelden."

"People still use that title an annoying lot."

Marian laughed again, deep blue eyes sparkling.

Yes, Lenore could see why someone would fall for her.

"I've heard tell about you, a lot, as a matter of fact, but someone clearly forgot to mention how beautiful you are," Hawke said with astonishing earnesty.

"I usually don't wear this dress," Lenore replied with a wink. Two could play that game.

"A shame, really."

"You're quite a sight as well, sera."

"I almost didn't notice you. You're very stealthy." Marian gave her an approving look. "Why were you spying on us, though?"

"I heard a familiar voice and thought it would just be courteous to inquire after my fellow wardens. Who I haven't seen in years."

Suddenly, there was steel in Marian's eyes. Before she could say something they might both have regretted, Lenore raised her hands placatingly.

"I have no intentions whatsoever of dragging them back with me. They have better things to do, apparently. And they don't want to see me. I understand. It was an honour to make your acquaintance, Sera Hawke. You fight for an honourable cause, but I hope you know what you're doing with the two of them."

"I do," Marian said seriously. "It was a pleasure meeting you as well."

Lenore turned to go, and only saw the movement out of the corner of her eye, but years of fighting had trained her reflexes to near perfection. She whipped around and pushed Marian around the corner, registering the pain in her arm only marginally.

"Assassin!" she hissed, but Hawke had already pulled two daggers out of nowhere and thrown one around the corner, followed by a cry from the left. Before either of them could do anything else, however, something bright blue had charged past them and the world errupted in ice.

"Two dead assassins," Hawke informed her moments later, then looked at Lenore's arm. "Do come here, she needs healing."

Lenore could only stare at him, feeling nauseated.

"Hello Justice," she muttered.

"Commander. Running away from you was cowardly. But now we have a cause to fight for. It is just."

She just nodded wearily.

"I know. Have it your way. I don't care."

The eerie glow subsided and she looked only at Anders.

"Let me see that," he said softly, not meeting her eyes.

"It's just a scratch. I think the arrow ruined the tapestry, though."

He healed the slash on her arm easily.

"There may be more around. I should inform the king. Will you two be alright?"

Anders nodded at Marian, and she ran off, daggers still drawn.

"You saved her. Thank you."

"I endangered her in the first place," Lenore replied.

"Lenore..."

"Don't."

"Please listen to me. I have always been a coward. I've always run away. But not now. I don't regret leaving the wardens, though I'm sorry if I let you down. But this I need to do."

"How many innocent people did you kill?"

"Innocence is a lie."

"That kind of moral relativism is the first step to losing your humanity. Although you haven't been all human in a long time, have you?"

He took a deep breath. He looked tired. Weary. Thinner, so much more serious. Not the man she'd known.

"I don't expect you to understand. You're not a mage, you don't know what it's like never to be free. It was getting worse every day. And no one was doing anything. Apathy is a weakness. Mages were killed, raped, made tranquil for the smallest offense. No one should be allowed to have that kind of power over someone else. And of course apostates would turn to blood magic. They were desperate. Nothing to lose. All self-fulfilling prophecies. I have killed in cold blood, but I don't regret it. It needed to escalate."

The worst thing was that a part of her did understand why he'd done it.

"I didn't mean to drag Marian into all this. But she understands. Her father was an apostate. Her sister is. She wants to help. I don't know how I deserved her." He rubbed his eyes.

"I've always had the greatest respect for you, Lenore. It might mean nothing to you..."

"Enough," she whispered.

He nodded gravely. Then he said quickly:

"I hate to point it out, but your dress kind of shifted..."

Lenore looked down, eyes widening, then she quickly pulled the fabric back over her breasts.

A moment later there were steps, and Alistair rushed towards them, followed by Hawke.

"Are you all right, Nor?" He looked at her, wide-eyed and anxious.

"It was really just a scratch. Anders healed it in seconds."

"You probably saved my life. I cannot thank you enough," Hawke said, eyes soft.

"You can get me a drink," Lenore muttered.

"My guards are searching the entire perimeter. There may be more around, but I believe it is unlikely, not now that we've been warned, anyway. Nobody else noticed. The other guests have started retiring to their rooms, I suppose we can call it a night. Do you want me to take you back to the other wardens?"

"With all due respect your majesty, the woman needs a drink," Marian said.

Alistair looked from her to Lenore, who nodded emphatically, and he gave a shrug.

"We'll discuss the night's results tomorrow, then?" he said to Marian.

"We will."

With a last worried look at her, Alistair retired as well.

. . .

"I've never been to Denerim before. As a child, I always wanted to see the big city. There was very little excitement in Lothering. We couldn't, of course. Not with my father being an apostate. Too many templars in the big city."

Marian downed her drink. Anders had retired, and they'd found themselves a drawing room, had the servants bring them assorted cordials, and were getting acquainted as well as drunk.

"And then I got to Kirkwall and somehow, that turned into home, despite everything."

She shook her head.

"I came through Lothering right after Ostagar," Lenore replied. "It was destroyed little later."

"We must have been there at about the same time. My brother and I fought at Ostagar. Carver. He was so annoying all the time. He died when we fled."

"I'm sorry."

"Your family was killed as well, right? Maker, sorry, that was horribly blunt."

"You know so much about me," Lenore said softly.

"You're the Hero of Ferelden! I pressed Anders for details, but he always had that guilty look about him when he talked about his time with the wardens. And maker, the things Isabela said!" Marian grinned, legs dangling merrily over the armrest of her armchair, and Lenore's head whipped up.

"She talked about me?"

"'Bragged' would be the right word. I don't feel comfortable telling you what she said in detail..."

"She was in Amaranthine a few months ago. As far as I know, she's here now."

Marian frowned, looked at her closely.

"She just vanished after the battle. Can't blame her. Not this time, anyway, but it would have been nice to hear from her, at some point."

"She was miserable."

Marian shifted, frowning at her.

"She told you about us, didn't she? Did she tell you everything? How years of supporting her weren't enough for her to just tell me about her damn relic and the Qunari? We could have found it earlier, could have stopped the situation from getting out of hand."

She sighed.

"She didn't trust me and I didn't trust her after that. I couldn't. I may even have loved her, but that just hadn't been enough. She asked me if she had a chance with me, and I said no, and I saw what it did to her, but I couldn't have her run away again at the next bump in the road."

"Did Anders tell you about his plan to blow up that chantry?" Lenore asked, feeling petulant, all of a sudden.

Marian just huffed.

"We had horrible fights in the weeks following the Battle of Kirkwall, don't think I just accepted what he did. But his motivation was entirely selfless. He'd die for his cause, any time, and I would follow him into the Void. He didn't tell me because he didn't want to drag me into the entire mess. But I was already in it head over heels, anyway."

Lenore lay back on the chaiselongue and just stared at the high ceiling for a long time.

"It's not your fault, you know?" Marian said lowly after a while.

"What do you mean?"

"She's running away from herself, most of all."

Lenore was silent.

"But if you see her – tell her I was worried. No, wait, that sounds like an accusation. Tell her I'm grateful she was there until the end."

"If I see her, I'll tell her."

"You're really not the ice queen she said you were."

Lenore snorted.

"Ice queen?"

"Her words."

Lenore thought about it for a moment.

"Actually, I think I am. Tonight is an exception. Assassination attempts and liquor and extraordinarily charming company have made me forget myself."

Marian laughed.

"If I weren't in a loving, committed, kind of complicated relationship with a man and the spirit he's sharing his body with, I'd so try and get under that gorgeous dress of yours. And I think I've had enough drink for tonight, if I start saying that kind of thing."

Lenore felt herself blush.

"It might also not earn me favours with the king."

"Oh no. No, no. We've just started being friends again. That didn't work out. Nothing has ever worked out."

She sat up abruptly.

"You hold on to Anders, if he makes you happy, Hawke."

"I will," Hawke muttered, slightly bemused. "I'd be glad if Isabela found someone..." Her voice trailed off. "I never wanted to hurt her."

Lenore turned her face away, unable to come up with a reply.


	12. Chapter 12

It had been a long, rainy day, and all Isabela wanted after she'd come back from a job and had dried herself off, was a stiff drink at the bar and perhaps a quick tumble. But it was long past midnight, and there were only a handful of other customers around, and none of them looked even remotely doable. She shouldn't be drinking at the bar at all. At the rate she was making coin, it would be years before she could afford a ship. The thought made her maudlin and miserable and swallow the infernal brew before her in one draught.

Just when she wanted to retire, the door opened, revealing a weirdly shady figure. Quite literally shady, there had to be an enchantment on the cloak, even as the person stepped inside, Isabela had to squint to see the figure, the cloak kept shifting, like murky water or storm clouds.  
She was wary at once, no one who could afford that kind of enchantment would want to drink here.

But then the cloak came off and Isabela could only stare. The room suddenly fell completely silent. She'd have expected someone to whistle or make a lewd comment, considering how much skin the dress showed. But Lenore was not only a beautiful sight, she looked almost eerie, skin all but glowing in contrast to the deep red dress, pale as a ghost. In the dingy taproom, she was the strangest, most out of place thing one could possibly imagine. Isabela looked around quickly and could actually see fear in the men's faces. Then those grey-blue eyes fixed on her, and Lenore strode over.

"Take me to your room, Isabela."

Isabela did not usually obey commands, but this seemed rather reasonable. She took Lenore by the wrist and pulled her up a small, dark staircase and into her tiny room. Once the door was closed, Lenore whispered:

"Take me to bed. I know you can find yourself a whore more talented than I, but she won't let her hair down for you the way I do, and she won't need to be fucked the way I do tonight. I'll let you do anything you want."

"You had me the moment you came in here, sweet thing, you needn't beg," Isabela said, but something about the way Lenore looked made her falter. "What's wrong, dove? Where did you come from, looking like that? Are you drunk?"

"Not enough by far."

She averted her eyes, and Isabela took her by the wrist.

"Tell me."

"It's nothing." She pulled Isabela close and kissed her deeply. For a moment, Isabela didn't fight it, but then she pushed her back gently enough.

"Lenore." She gave her a wary look, then frowned. "There's blood on your arm."

Lenore craned her neck and twisted to see the back of her arm.

"I was at a soiree given by the king. There was an assassin, nothing to worry about, it's positively par for the course."

Isabela felt herself growing angry, suddenly.

"Someone tried to assassinate you and then you come here, wearing no armour at all?"

"I wasn't the target. And my cloak makes me near invisible on a night like this."

If anything, it made Isabela angrier.

"So you just threw yourself at someone else's assassin? Maker, I hate your type!"

Lenore gave her a very odd look. Then her shoulders seemed to sag slightly and she muttered:

"Marian Hawke was the target. She's fine, though."

Isabela just stared at her, feeling numb. She wanted to ask a lot of questions, but all she did eventually was shrug. Then she quickly brought her hands under the cloth barely covering Lenore's chest and pushed it aside, down her shoulders, effectively baring her from the waist up.

"Let's just fuck, right? That's what you came for. Come on, let down your hair for me, like you promised."

Silver strands started falling all around her as Isabela's mouth latched on to one pebbled nipple, grazing the other roughly with her nails. Lenore shivered, gasped, pressed her chest closer. Fingers tugged away Isabela's bandana, then buried in her hair, rubbed down her neck in small circles.

"I missed you," Lenore whispered, barely audible. Isabela bit her for that, before her free hand grabbed Lenore's ass through the fabric of her dress, dug her fingers into it, then moved up a little and yanked the dress down over Lenore's slender hips. She let go of Lenore's breast for a moment, to mutter:

"Did I hear you say I could do anything?"

For emphasis, she let her fingers slip under Lenore's smallclothes and between her cheeks, brazenly nudging at her other entrance. Lenore pulled away a little, looked down at Isabela with a hint of something unnameable in her eyes. But then she closed her eyes, lips parting to whisper:

"Anything."

"Anything," Lenore muttered, her heart beating too hard, everything inside her insisting that she shouldn't have come here at all. She'd just ached so badly for her after talking to Hawke, and for some reason or other, Sigrun had explained to her in detail where Isabela was staying.

She brazed herself for what Isabela would do, but suddenly every touch ceased.

"Why?"

She opened her eyes, looking down at Isabela, whose expression was guarded, unreadable.

"Does it matter?" she said quickly, failing miserably at keeping her tone aloof.

"Do you really want me to fuck you like any whore, Lady Cousland?"

"It's what you do, isn't it?" Lenore replied sharply. "You wouldn't have me wanting any more from you now, would you?"

They stared at each other for an unbearably tense moment, then Isabela cursed, took her wrist again and dragged her over to the bed.

"Sit," she ordered, and Lenore sat down on the altogether too dingy mattress, even as she gave the other woman a wary look. Isabela undressed casually, then followed her. Lenore watched her closely, unsure what to expect.

"Come here, Lenore," she just muttered, tugging on Lenore's shoulders, and she let herself be pulled down against Isabela, feeling unpleasantly out of her depth. "Close your eyes, dove, and forget who I am, and who you are, and just tell me what's going on in that head of yours."

"Isabela..."

"I know you never do that. But you can't go on not letting anything out, ever."

She pressed her face against Isabela's shoulder.

"Can you go on not letting anything in?" she replied, a lump in her throat.

"Perhaps not," Isabela said slowly.

"I said no strings attached, and I meant it. Then. I am as inapt with feelings as anyone could possibly be." Lenore searched hard for the words to express what she'd barely allowed herself to feel. "But I want more from you."

Isabela was silent for a while, stroking her hair gingerly. Then she said, once more in that unusually soft voice:

"Look, sweet thing. I... I'm sex, and giggles, and good times. I'm moans in a back alley, and coins you won't miss the next morning. What I am not is someone to fall in love with. There is nothing about me to fall in love with. Especially not for a hero."

Lenore huffed.

"You're selling yourself short, Isabela, and you must know it. And why don't you let me decide who and what about them I fall in love with, and the only thing you have to worry about is whether or not you requite my feelings?"

"It isn't that easy, dove. It never works out. I cannot live up to your standards, and I'm pretty sure I don't even want to try. I'll just let you down."

"I am not Hawke, Isabela. Whatever happened between the two of you, doesn't mean it will happen between us."

"You're a maker-be-damned hero, Lenore, and I'm nothing but... flotsam."

"Just tell me, honestly, that you don't have feelings for me and I'll leave you be."

Isabela was silent.

"Will you run away now, like you always do?"

"Did Hawke talk about me?" she asked lowly.

Lenore gave a small nod.

"Do you still love her?" she asked, her throat dry.

"I don't know, Lenore."

"She said you always just run away from yourself," Lenore said very lowly.

For a long time, Isabela was silent, just lying there, stroking Lenore's hair.


	13. Chapter 13

"Let me tell you a story, dove," Isabela said, eventually. "There once was a young girl in Llomerryn. Pretty thing. Headstrong. Dirt poor. She loved the sea. But she also knew that if you got in too deep, you'd drown. She found out soon enough that this was true for almost everything you loved. When she was seventeen, her mother decided to convert to the Qun, and the girl refused to join her. Oh, she should have run away. But she didn't. She didn't, and her mother sold her to a rich Antivan in a marketplace, because she was useless to her. A thing of no value. She tried to run then. She fought tooth and nail. In vain. So she had to marry a man she didn't like. With everything being married entailed. She punished him by taking lovers. Not that she let herself get caught, that might not have ended well. One of her lovers turned out to be an assassin, who used her to get to her husband. Not that she minded his death, but she hated having been used. Ah, well, the sex had been great. In any case, she was suddenly free. And she ran. She didn't look back once. Well, she didn't run literally. Her husband had a ship. As his widow, she felt free to claim it. She'd never been that free before. It was exhilarating. The most glorious feeling in the world. Freedom. It smells of tar and sweating sailors and tastes like salt, and sways, more or less gently, beneath you." Isabela sighed.

"And then what?" Lenore asked very quietly, fingertips slowly painting circles around Isabela's navel.

"And then, because she was still a silly young thing, she fell in love with a man. And he fell in love with her and asked her to become his wife. And they would have lived happily ever after, if she hadn't felt freedom calling out to her like a siren. She chose her freedom, then. She never regretted it. For years she just sailed wherever the wind blew. Became a raider, a pirate. Notorious. The Queen of the Eastern Seas, they called her. And she lay with whoever she wanted to, and she never let anyone chain her. It was glorious. She made many enemies, but she also encountered the strangest, most wonderful people. She bedded the Hero of Ferelden, even, who was quite the minx, can you believe it? But then she made a mistake and made someone she worked for very angry, and took on a bad job in order to rectify that somehow. That was a very bad idea. One of the hardest things she ever had to do was to sail her ship, her beautiful, marvelous ship, into a storm to escape her pursuers. Her ship sank, and she was stranded in Kirkwall, where she took on odd jobs and hid and got drunk every night. But then she met a young woman, a refugee, who was very annoying, because she insisted on being decent and kind and helpful to everyone and their cousin once removed, and that one guy that cousin had once shared a drink with. But she was also highly useful, and funny, and beautiful, and she just couldn't pass up the opportunity to sleep with her. Not that she thought it meant something, but somehow..."

She shook her head.

"And she ran again?"

"She tried to. She really tried. She could have gotten enough gold for a new ship. But she came back. Out of something worse even than love, though it was part of the reason. But for the first time in years, she felt guilty. For letting that good, sweet woman deal with the problems she'd caused. And then that woman could have handed her over to the Qunari. But she didn't even think about it for a second. Instead she agreed to fight the Arishok in single combat for her. Andraste's tits, he speared her on his sword, and she still kept going. Killed him. Collapsed. It was Anders who saved her afterwards. I just stood there, numb. And once he'd taken her to her mansion, I stole away. Hid from her for years, but she sought me out eventually, and I thought... maybe all this was worth reconsidering a few things. But she could not forgive me. She had moved on. Or perhaps she just hadn't loved me enough. I don't know, but it left me so empty. Lenore, I can't do this again. I'm going to screw up, I'm not good, I..."

Lenore didn't let her go on. Just turned in her arms and pressed her lips to Isabela's in a soft, tender kiss that deepened after a moment, became oddly desperate as Isabela surged up against her and kissed back hungrily. Eventually they had to break apart out of a sheer need for air.

"She wanted me to tell you something," Lenore said after a moment.

"I don't..."

"No, you ought to hear this. She said she's grateful you were there until the end."

Isabela looked up at her, frowning.

"You're better than you think, Isabela. Stop the self-deprecation. It's unbecoming."

"It is, isn't it? I think it's giving me wrinkles..."

Lenore leaned over her and kissed her again.

"I'm not going to ask for much. Anything you are comfortable giving me."

Isabela exhaled slowly, and Lenore wondered, anxiously, if she'd pushed her too far.

"How would this even work? You don't expect me to stay in Amaranthine with you, do you? Because that just..."

"No. Of course not. I... I have been thinking about this for a while now. The trade route between Amaranthine and Antiva City is flourishing, especially with Kirkwall out of the picture, for now. But there have been very pesky raiders in the last years. Llomerryn-based raiders, getting bolder by the year. If someone could ensure the safety of our ships, someone who knew her way around pirates, I might be willing to make her captain of a frigate, which would be policing the Waking Sea and part of the Amaranthine Ocean. It's not what you're used to, I know. Fighting raiders, not being one. Just think about it."

"Does she have a name?" Isabela asked lowly, after a moment's silence.

"She's the Grace of the Waking Sea," Lenore said with a smile.

"You'd trust me with her?"

"I would. Regardless of what happens between us, this offer stands. I'm not trying to bribe you into anything. But if you were willing to consider this – us – all I ask is that you come back to me every once in a while."

"You're giving me a ship."

"Technically, it's my ship."

"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"I don't think it beats fighting the Arish..."

Isabela pulled her into a hard, deep kiss that left them both panting.

"All right, sweet thing, there's no way I can possibly make up for this, but I'm going to try very, very hard," Isabela said as she grabbed Lenore and pushed her onto the mattress.

"You don't have to..."

"Hush, that was just a segue so I can start devouring you."

"Oh," Lenore muttered, her eyes fluttering closed as Isabela pushed her legs apart. "You know, I haven't changed my mind. You can do anything. I, uh..." She squirmed against Isabela's hand. "I'm actually... kind of... curious..."

Isabela gave her a devious grin.

"You're still so eager. It's one of the things I love about you."

And then she quickly hid her face between Lenore's legs, and Lenore's head fell back, and she really didn't have much coherent thought to spare, but the words had still registered, every single one of them.

* * *

_This is now officially longer than my BA-thesis. Yeah! _

_I've taken some liberties with Izzy's life story. Basically, I'm merrily cherry-picking from all the information given, and you have to, really, because it's contradictory at times. I'll admit that I haven't read 'Those who speak', just read about it, but some of the things in it I felt like including... Do you care, dear reader? Nah, you probably don't. Have a cookie for following me so far instead! It's greatly appreciated._


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